'The Other Self' reveals the essence of my 'secret life' the private, personal side of me. My secret passion is creative writing - poems, short fiction, long fiction, historical narratives. I choose now to share the other me with you. Enjoy!

Sunday, July 09, 2017

Organ Donor

Organ
Donor

It
was already nine o’clock. Regine checked herself in the mirror. She looked just
right. The olive colored suit, a Mychael Knight original, complemented her
caramel coloring, hazel eyes and honey-colored hair. She was riveting and she
knew it.

”You think I’ll impress
Simkins?”

Petite, freckled and bubbly,
Jen nodded as she caught the hairbrush Regine flung at her.

“He’s big league, honey,
rolling in dough. If I get this case, it’ll be a handsome payday. Noon at
Justin’s. You said he’ll find me?”

“He’s seen you on TV.
Everybody has since the Laveau case.”

Regine preened one last time,
“That was brilliant if I do say so. Guilty bastard walked with probation and
community service. Which bag? Coach or Kenneth Cole? Okay Coach - the black
one.”

Jen quickly transferred her
things.

“You should have seen the
DA’s face when the sentence was handed down - priceless.”

“He said he had to attend to
some important personal business on Moreland first but he should be there on
time.”

“This is my big opportunity. If only I didn’t
have to take care of that lost driver’s license first.”

After that official police
warning the previous evening, Regine could not put it off any longer. It would not
do to be caught on the wrong side of the law, not to mention the negative
press.

“Anais. Now why couldn’t you
do this for me, too?”

Jen laughed. “Sorry. I can’t.”

Regine sprayed on some Anais
and snatched the keys from Jen’s extended hand on her way out.Jen would clean up after her as usual. That’s
what personal assistants were for.

“Don’t be late.” Jen called after her.“You know how you are!”

The Department of Motor
Vehicles, located on South Moreland, one of the seediest parts of Atlanta, and
jammed with people, smelled like a cross between a triage ward and a cheap
café. Too bad she couldn’t hold her breath for the duration. There was standing
room only and the queue inched forward. Regine glanced at her diamond-encrustedRolex. Almost
ten thirty. With a sigh, she pulled out her Kindle to pass the time with Afterburn, a Zane sizzler.

It was hard to ignore the tall,
lanky man of about forty standing next to her wearing a badly-fitting brown
polyester suit with sallow skin, and sunken cheeks. His stale tobacco odor
assailed her as he edged closer apparently to say something to her. Strike
One.She glared at him and he backed off,
but only for a second. She took a deep breath and refocused on Zane. She could
feel the creep’s nicotine-laced breath warm and eager against her neck. For
some reason he seemed intent on making conversation, however unwelcome. Regine
shut him down with a steely stare. But his intense gray eyes and ever-present
smile refused to leave her head.

An hour later the queue had barely moved. She would have to
call Jen. She rummaged in her bag for her Blackberry Curve but came up empty-handed. Jen must have forgotten to transfer it.“Here, use mine,” Mr. Nicotine
offered.

It was either that or, heaven forbid, the outside pay
phone. As she accepted the grungy Motorola RAZR, she noticed the grime embedded
under his fingernails and concluded he must be an auto mechanic or something equally
loathsome. The first ring brought Jen’s perky
greeting. Regine had no time for pointless pleasantries. She cut her short.

“Call Simkins. Make sure he
doesn’t leave.”

With a forced smile and a curt
thank you, she returned the phone. “Lost your driver’s license,
too?” He dared to claim affinity. “It costs less for organ donors, you know.” Strike Two. Smoker and cheapskate. She wondered if he planned to donate a
diseased lung just to save a penny.

Just then they called G506. A smile spread across his face making him look
almost handsome.“That’s me. See you later.”“Not if I can help it.”

He was answering his phone
and missed her vitriol.

Another fifteen minutes went by before she heard her number.With all paperwork in order, she handed over
a Platinum Visa.

Regine bristled and fished
around in her Bermuda Triangle while Ms. Ghettofabulous, seated behind the
window, tossed her weave and drummed her long, painted acrylic nails on the
counter.

Regine found a five and three
ones -- just enough for organ donation. When
she hesitated, Ms. Ghettofabrolled her eyes. “Next!”
Regine plunked eight dollars down
on the counter, “Organ donor endorsement.”Ms. Ghettofab raised one penciled-in eyebrow and snorted.

Five minutes
later, Prada shielding her light-sensitive eyes, Regine turned her royal blue
BMW onto the downtown connector, her thoughts fixed on Lonnie Simkins and lemon
trout at Justin’s, P.Diddy’s classy restaurant on Peachtree in Buckhead. She
was already behind time. At the 400 exit, she pulled
alongside a rusted Taurus hooptie belching thick, gray exhaust fumes. The
driver was Organ Donor. Was he following her? Strike Three.

She stepped hard on the gas, and
cut him off on the merger. Too late she saw the silver Benz approaching at
high speed from the Sidney Marcus direction. Regine swerved to the right but ended up
wedged in the ditch, engine sputtering, steam rising, the passenger side jammed
against the noise barrier, cars whizzing by. Her door refused to budge.Her stomach lurched.

Suddenly, there was Organ Donor again, springing
into action with a crowbar in hand, prizing her door open. His strong yet gentle
hands lifted her out to safety. Tearful
and weak with relief, she slumped against his shoulder.

“One more coat of
paint, and you could have been an organ donor,” he teased, securing her in his
passenger seat and fastening her seatbelt.

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Kalypsoul

Multi-myriad Me

About Me

The saga continues. I have completed the Creative Writing course and now have my Diploma in hand. Now on to the next thing - Novel Writing, or rather, Novel Revising. Once again, I will keep you posted.

The Way I Use Language

Author’s Note: Codeflow

You will find that I have started to experiment with movement in communication referencing (in speech and thought patterns) from dialect to standard that is neither unidirectional nor formulaic. This is deliberate. The style used here is my experimentation with what I call code-flow. I find myself writing the way I speak – in a comfortable, fluid mixture of standard and dialect, often within the same sentence, the same thought. It is what we Caribbean people do in uncontrived everyday speech. It is not code-shifting with which the literary world is familiar. Code-switching or code- shifting tends to follow a certain pattern, dialect for speech and standard for description and narration as has been traditionally used in Caribbean fiction. I am taking it a step further, letting dialect flow into standard and back again in both dialogue and narration/description, mingling together in the same sentence, the same thought. To me this shows the true fluidity/reality of how we operate linguistically in everyday life. We do not think in standard English and converse in Trini dialect; we think in both and speak in both but not all the same time. I may begin a thought in the standard received form but suddenly I want to express surprise, hilarity, indignation, outrage and the standard does not have the right words. I flow effortlessly to that in which I can express those thought, those ideas, those sentiments most comfortably. I express them and, depending on what I wish to reference next, I either move back to standard, stay where I am or move deeper into another dialect comfort zone. I may say it in French Patois or Cocoa Panyol or a dialect of Hindi or of English or I may use a uniquely West African turn of phrase or grammatical construct or express m thoughts in a totally creative word or expression known only to my country or one group or individual within. Language gets created through use and new words and expressions all have a very specific starting point.

Code switching is an improvement on the outright rejection of the use of dialect as having no place in the written word or in Caribbean literature. It also differs from the outright rejection of the standard as a form of linguistic resistance to colonialism. Yet, code switching is a colonized, conformist mode that, in spite of itself, accepts the superiority of the standard and makes apologies for dialect by restricting its use only to direct speech. It reflects the pedagogy of colonial education which polarized the acceptable standard of the reading books and the classroom from the unacceptable dialect of everyday use by everyday people. It was a time when the whip was applied to purge the tendency towards dialect use in respectable settings.

Code sliding attempts a more integral blending of the two and brings together a variety of Caribbean dialects in one form. It moves in the direction of defining a distinct and decolonized Caribbean identity in the aftermath of colonialism. The term code-sliding, however, implies for me a lack of control, a downward sort of slippery slope movement, and a built-in acceptance of linguistic hierarchies. Instead I advance the concept of code-flow which conveys the sense of non-hierarchical fluidity and an effortlessness that defines acceptance of a unique identity in the context of postmodernity rather than deliberate conscious resistance in the context of coloniality or postcoloniality. It speaks of creativity, reinterpretation and transformation. The smooth fluidity of language that melds the standard with dialect in a thought, in a phrase, in a sentence, shows not so much a rejection of historic influences but an acceptance of the new self,the birth of a Caribbean identity in which colonialism and an ethos defined by resistance to it are merely blurred distant memories. Caribbean code-flow essentially involves and emerges from an unequivocal acceptance of all aspects of a new self: Africa, Europe, India and Mesoamerica, all integral to the new identity through reinterpretation and transformation. It is méstissajé, creolité, unrepentant.